I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Earthquake

I live in earthquake country. I've been on the ground for two major earthquakes (Loma Prieta 1989, Northridge 1994) and a host of more minor ones. So I can tell you with at least a little bit of experience that the longer a fault goes without moving, the worse the quake is when the fault finally starts to move. And how EVE players treat each other is one hell of a big fault that hasn't moved for... well, forever, really. I should have expected an earthquake this big. But I didn't.

I apologize for being one of the catalysts that started this earthquake. But clearly, there's been a very deep river of feeling in the EVE community about the topic of how EVE players treat each other for a long time. Without that, there's no way this situation would have escalated into a threadnaught. I tapped that river without realizing it. That, I'm not going to apologize for. I'm still glad the topic is going to be discussed, and discussed seriously.

Because make no mistake: what Erotica 1 and his cronies do isn't about the scams. I don't have a problem with scams. But by the time his victims are in the bonus room for 10 or 12 minutes, the scam is over: the perpetrators of these despicable things already have the victim's assets and ISK. They've already "won." The other 100+ minutes are about how the victim is treated and what he is made to do and how he is made to humiliate himself. The punishment for "non-compliance" with this humiliation: loss of every in-game asset. But it's the learned helplessness associated with this sick little game that's the problem. That's the part I'm concerned about.

This is why I'm really friendly with EVE players... because they're scary. -- CCP Guard, at the NEO2(1)

Earthquakes do damage because of the strength of the quake of course. But the type of buildings you put on the ground also plays a major part. Stronger buildings can survive and ride through a major shock. Part of the why the EVE community worries me is the kinds of players it tends to draw. We make jokes about EVE being a sociopath simulator. Maybe we should stop. Maybe it's in danger of becoming not-a-joke. In my opinion, CCP needs to draw a firmer line between what is allowed and what is not.

Because every story about a particularly lucrative scam or massive corp theft or a particular way one EVE player treats another drives off one type of potential EVE player... and attracts another type. These things are allowed in the game. And they should continue to be allowed in the game! I do still believe that!

Please do not judge EVE Online community on this tiny ugly sample. This guy appears to be a sociopath and I hope CCP does something to show there are limits to meta-gaming. -- Massively commenter

But over time, the concentration of EVE players that join the game specifically intending to inflict misery on fellow EVE players -- because they can... because this behavior is never punished and in fact seems to be encouraged and in fact rewarded -- only seems to increase. That can't help but have long-term implications on the community and how it is viewed. Skip the rather poor article at Massively and jump straight down to the comments. Read what non-EVE players think about EVE players.

Malcanis and I disagree nearly completely on what should be done about Erotica 1. But we agree on one thing: EVE needs tens of thousands of new players. Are we ever going to get them? And if we do, what sort of new players will they be?

So I seem to have catalyzed an earthquake. I didn't intend for it to be quite this strong. But I'm also not going to say I didn't want to start a discussion. I did want to start a discussion. I think it's about time we have it.

206 comments:

It's an earthquake entirely deserved, and I will be fascinated to watch what's still standing and what's dust-choked rubble near the end. I'm glad someone with enough influence to trigger it was able to set it off.

Did you think about the people, like myself, who have actually pulled bodies out of "dust-choked rubble" following an earthquake IRL? Thank you for showing which side of the debate lacks sensitivity to other human beings, and can't separate a game from reality. Here's a hint: when you're playing a game, that's a game. When you're out in real life and people are dying to an earthquake, that's not a game. When you're on a teamspeak server devoted to gaming, and no one is signed on with their real names, that's still a game, a game related to but not the same as EVE online itself. When you're on the phone dialing 911 because someone is dying, that's real life.

I hope that helps with distinguishing reality from fiction, something that everyone here calling what happens in games 'torture' needs a stiff lesson in.

1) Oh, for... Really? It's called a metaphor. It's like a thought with another thought's hat on.

I'm sorry you had poor experiences with earthquakes, but I'm not going to stop using metaphors altogether just because things happen.

2) Jester already covered the "Torture" angle in his last relevant blog post..

Second one: "This isn't torture! [Person or group that was tortured] wouldn't say it was torture!" A child psychologically tortured by an abusive parent would disagree. A wife psychologically tortured by an abusive husband would also disagree. I agree what is done here does not involve physical agony. But torture takes many forms and the psychological ones are just as destructive as the physical ones. Maybe more so.

"A child psychologically tortured by an abusive parent would disagree. A wife psychologically tortured by an abusive husband would also disagree."

Clearly this is on par with getting scammed/trolled in a game...

Do you even realize the absurdity of your comment? My girlfriend has been psychologically abused her entire childhood by her father. She had no escape, no way out and no way of preventing it. She had to overcome a lot of shit, none of which can compare to something as trivial as getting your lack of intelligence exploited in a game. While I agree that the guy got victimized, it's beyond offensive to draw parralels between this and real bullying.

Erotica 1 is the current extreme not of scamming itself (which is perfectly acceptable imho) but of the "harvesting tears" slope that many scammers have been sliding down for quite some time now.

There are no in-game tears that would be interesting or entertaining in any way.

For a few years now a subculture of scammers has developed that doesn't primarily care about taking your in-game assets but about inflicting real-life pain. Billions have become trivial and nobody will top the amounts sstolen by the likes of Phaser Inc, EBANK, ... anyways. The competition has changed to the question of who can procure the most tasty tears.

Harvesting tears means deliberately provoking another player to react to in-game action with a disproportional out-of-game response.It is no different than other types of bullying and psychological abuse, in fact imho the entire process (including the "deliberately trying to send the victim over the edge/to provoke a disproportionate response through seemingly innocuous provocations" angle) is *very* comparable to typical schoolyard bullying.

I agree. The ISK loss in these cases is trivial compared with the humiliation. Seems pretty obvious that's what Erotica 1 and his pals are in it for.

Ripard's right about the non-EVE gaming community's perception of us. I've seen that in my IT day job as well as the game development program at a local university. People at work will try pretty much any other online or single player game, but they turn up their noses at EVE. They have a hard time understanding what I see in it.

The same was true for my classmates and even the game dev profs. They see EVE as pretty to look at but un-fun and filled with unpleasant, conniving weirdos. I know they believed me when I said that there are great people in EVE and that my corpmates were cool to game with, but even that wasn't enough to convince them that it was worth a try.

Except the victim has the chance to gain his stuff back, so that gain is still there. Also, that there are winners proves that there's a legitimate business going on. Just because you find it personally distasteful is not a valid argument for action against it.

Has anyone with any credibility (and who's not one of Ero's alts) actually "won" the Bonus Room? A lot of these "You can win big, too!" testimonials come off like part of the con.

But whether or not real people uninvolved with the scam actually do win back their stuff, there's still some pretty sadistic shit going on, and I think we as a community we need to come down against it. It's fucked up.

this whole situation is fucked and CCP will be required by media and public outcry to do something. If they chose to do fuck all then they are going to get seriously fucked over. If this happened to a dustbunny SOE would be all over this like a fucking rash demanding CCP do something. SO if CCP want to get in bed with the big boys in the future they need to sort their shit out and fly straight

"Complaining about a lack of basic human decency is not the same thing as condemning scams."

No one is saying that those are the exact same thing. They are saying that in these pieces, Jester is:1. Complaining about a lack of human decency.2. Condemning scams.3. Claiming that he isn't condemning scams.

The fact that 3 is true does not imply that 2 is not true.

Bush said he wouldn't raise taxes. Bush Jr said he was the environmental president. If you say you're not condemning something, but then spend hundreds of words condemning it, you haven't created a paradox; you have only proved yourself wrong.

Jester is in no way, shape or form condemning scams. You pulled #2 out of thin air.

His long drawing-out of his marks--which is absolutely in no way limited to that one recording--has nothing to do with scamming, or anything in game for that matter. Any reasonable person playing EVE would expect to get burned by an ISK doubler. No reasonable person playing EVE would expect anything like the creepy power-tripping in the bonus room--or any of the other stuff he's pulled. That's not how you relate to other people. Whether the medium is a PVP game or not is completely irrelevant.

1 Jester claimed that the bonus room is torture.2. Jester claimed that even though the victims are free to walk away, they choose not to, because they are faced with the completely unacceptable alternative choice, which is not a choice, of giving up all of their ingame items.3. point 2 = claiming that scams are unacceptable, i.e., condemning scams.

"...not only is Jester claiming scams are unacceptable, but he's claiming that they are clearly WORSE than torture."

No. Re-read what he wrote:

"But by the time his victims are in the bonus room for 10 or 12 minutes, the scam is over: the perpetrators of these despicable things already have the victim's assets and ISK. They've already "won." "

And back in the original Bonus Room article, Jester writes:

"Now ISK doubling is a pretty standard scam in EVE ... It's not nice behavior, but in the grand scheme of things, it's relatively harmless."

I agree. But if the goal is to bring in tens of thousands of new players — the “right” kind of players, whatever that is — then we should be looking at the things that actually have generated excitement outside the game and a surge of new subscribers. B-R5RB is the one that jumps to mind most recently, and no changes in CCP policies or player behavior were required to make it happen. If I was a CCP exec or shareholder, I’d be saying, “We need more of that.”

I’m guessing that you’ve tried to address this issue of “Eve players behaving badly” with CCP staff and not cared much for their response. No doubt they are cautious (understandably) about making changes to their content model. They realize that the popularity and continued profitability of their product is built in part on a marketing strategy and unsual rules of player interaction that set them apart from other MMOs. Dust514 shows the risks of creating a product that is essentially identical to other games already on the market.

The key to Eve Online’s decade plus of success is one thing: emergence. It’s what drew most of us to the game and keeps us playing, because it’s what makes the game (and the meta-game) so unique. But be careful what you wish for — emergence is a fragile thing, and if you start larding it with too many rules and arbitrary, moralistic limitations, you can kill it pretty easily.

You’re a smart and savvy guy, Ripard, and you obviously wield considerable influence. Just tread lightly and cautiously, especially in earthquake territory.

PCU is at 2010 levels. Remind you, CCP *claims* that they have more subscribers than ever, but those guys never log in... or just log in one at a time. That is, they're alts.

When what you do is not drawing in *new* customers, the only solution is to do something *new* you never did before. But all chances to do that were shot down in 2011 and its aftermath, and now it's too late.

The CODE: players, to whom Erotica1, is highly affiliated with are already rules experts. Do we want this affair to evolve into another level of TOS & EULA nit-picking by James315 and his fellowers ?

On the other hand scoccer clubs have a long history of dealing with customers willing to let themselves go into violence ...... yes I compare Erotica1 with hooligans I think they are spiritual brothers. Maybe CCP;s community team can copy (and internetadapt) some of those anti violence methods used by big sportclubs to deal with Erotica1 events in the future

"Malcanis and I disagree nearly completely on what should be done about Erotica 1."

I would argue that this is the case because Malcanis himself has sociopathic tendencies. I wouldn't go so far as to put him in the same camp as Erotica 1, but he has defintiely shown himself to have some strong antisocial issues (most people just mistake this for him being a massive jerk). Malcanis can't argue from a point of impartiality here because the results could affect him personally, so his opinion can pretty much be discounted as biased.

Dismissing people who disagree is never a tactic that goes good places. Dismissing them as "too invested" is particularly dangerous. You may be right about Malcanis. Nonetheless, he should be allowed to be heard, before being told "We don't want that kind of thing around here [any more]."

Ad hominem – Discounting Malcanis because he too is a sociopath isn’t much of an argument.

Conflict of interest – Malcanis is no more of a conflicted position than Ripard. Both are arguing for the type of EvE they would like to see. This is precisely what they were elected to do and from what I see both are doing a damn fine job.

Instead of waiving away the arguer, let’s look at the actual arguments:

Ripard’s saying something like, “Look CCP. If you’re unwilling/unable to ban a player engaging in *this activity* [insert sound cloud here], then things look grim for you and your game.

Malcanis’ concern is something like, “Look CCP. If you ban a player engaging in *this activity* [same sound cloud goes here], who else are you going to have to ban? Once the round of bannings is completed, things look grim for you and your game.”

Both are talking about acceptable community. Malcanis’ approach leads to a much more expansive view than Ripard’s. CCP will be the ones to adjudicate.

Now, now, now Anonymous 1:29, if you’re going to hassle Antagonist for adding an unhelpful hypothetical at least respond to the text he actually typed. (Unhelpful because all it asks CCP to do is point at one previous case and say, “We banned that fellow for Behavior X. Behavior X crosses an unacceptable line.” I’m confident at least one player, somewhere in EvE’s 10 year history has been banned. Find that incident, find a line.)

Personally, I prefer a role playing mock:“Excellent question Antagonist. Truly worthy of experimental study. Shall we attempt to find a line? We’ll grief for Science!”

Alright, here we go again, the same spiel over how Erotica 1 is a sociopath when the only example given is one that can be construed as very bad (How many here know the definition, huh, show of hands?).

Have you talked to anyone else that played the bonus room Ripard? Or are you so confident up on your high horse that you will take Sohkar's experience as the norm? I bet Sohkar came to you personally with the sob story.

Second, everyone is overestimating the CSM. Sure Ripard is famous with the player community as a CSM rep and blogger, but CCP has no obligation to listen to what he has to say, and can boot him from his position just as easily as they booted The Mittani.

In the same vein as this, I still believe you are out for a personal agenda, especially since Ero is running for CSM. What better way to try to discredit your opponent than spinning an event involving them into something you would eradicate?

Seriously, either admit you are mudslinging and sensationalizing Ripard, or at least try to back up your claims with more research.

It's not "discrediting your opponent" since ripard is not running for CSM9. Nor is it mudslinging when there is a rather disgusting audio recording available. If someone else who had no involvement with the CSM had found this and made a forum post about it to bring it to light, I doubt your argument would come up.

I live under a rock so I didn't know that. It is still slandering, Ero is the one who remained calm, and Sohkar still agreed beforehand. Granted Erotica couls have stopped the recording, but Sohkar sill volunatrily gave permission for it to be recorded.

And no of course that particular argument would have been unlikely, but I still think Ripard is turning this into a personal agenda, he's dedicated three separate posts to this issue already.

Again, Sohkar's experience is more than likely an exception rather than the rule, which I feel Ripard is trying to convey when it isn't the truth. I can back this up, as Ripard's argument is based entirely on one recording out of many.

I would very much like to see what Ripard has to say of my arguments. Or even what you have to say about the other parts of my piece, I'm looking forward to it.

@Anon 11:02

Glad my turn of phrase could be entertaining, it was one of those times where my brain pretty much had nothing so all I had was that phrase specifically.

That and I've been told (somewhat wrongly apparently) that much of the vocabulary I use goes over people's heads online. So that's a derp on me.

Alright, fair enough. Let's discuss the other side of your argument then, the part about sensationalism rather then the defunct "mudslinging" aspect.

Your point about seems to be that this is most likely an outlier in a series of events, and that it is not representative of the bonus room as a whole. Perhaps you are correct! Perhaps it has never been this bad before. This argument however is completely reliant on the admission that the situation DID cross the line in this instance. And this event has been made public as a result. Now if erotica or anyone else wants to provide substantial evidence that this was taken too far and that normally it isn't this bad, then they can by all means. But I think the point ripard is trying to make (and has made to me at least) is that the concept of the bonus room in of itself crosses the line, as the scam has been completed by the time we get to the bonus room. I would argue the scenario is indicative that when bonus room is in full swing it is merely an ongoing humiliation of the victim of the scam, as there is no more profit to be made. That in of itself could be considered unusually excessive if we judge regular scams to be perfectly fine.

As for sensationalism, I don't think ripards posts qualify. Surely ripard, like all writers, has a degree of bias in his work, but this is his blog. All he is doing is taking a piece of information that he finds disturbing and expressing his opinion on it. Opinion which can not be considered slander since is it not a false statement constructed with the intention to hurt the individual or group he represents (defamation). It is a true statement about events that have occurred and is backed up with evidence to support it. And it is a statement designed to draw attention to something ripard, and judging from the communities reaction several other players, consider to be an issue. He has stated he didn't expect it to be this big, and follow up posts about how it's developing are perfectly reasonable. And explaining how it ties in to the issue of community health which ripard has already devoted several blog posts to covering is as valid an approach as any other.

Your "argument" looks to be based on "You only have evidence that Erotica 1 did a really really bad thing completely on purpose once" and a load of strawmen like "I bet Sohkar came to you personally with the sob story.", "everyone is overestimating the CSM" & "I still believe you are out for a personal agenda".

You clearly believe your made up accusations somehow form an argument that deserves some sort of discerning attention. You are delusional. Come back when you can stick to facts and avoid making up nonsense.

For the fact that sohkar granted permission to record the event, well, that's fine. He did grant permission. But I think erotica is just as guilty of abusing that blanket permission to humiliate sohkar, and I do not think that it justifies his actions in any way. If we assume that sohkars permission makes the release of this recording ok, it still doesn't justify eroticas actions and just shifts the issue from being mad about the recording to being mad about the conduct recorded.

Finally, so what if people are overestimating the CSM? Your right, CCP doesn't have to listen to anything the CSM say. All the CSM gives is advice. But having a CSM member draw attention to something is certainly a good way to get CCP to look at it.

I will admit that there are things that cross the line, it really shouldn't take two hours, I would like to point out to you that Sohkar dug in his heels and started becoming angry at one song, and refused to be cooperative even when he was offered the option of choosing a song himself.

Plus, since when has singing songs on teamspeak been an issue, not until now I would think.

I think my problem isn't so much Ripard's opnions, and dedicating four posts to one specific issue is at the very least to me says that he is, well, focused comes to mind.

I can and will show you an entirely different instance of the bonus room, disregard the article it comes with, there are links to the recording contained within: http://www.minerbumping.com/2014/02/read-code-follow-code.html

Fourthly, I strongly believe Erotica obeys his own rules, Sohkar's isk was doubled honestly, and I bet if he did cooperate he would have gotten the big payout. We will never know I guess.

I believe my problem doesn't so much lay with Ripard's posts, more so with the comments that come with it with labeling of "sociopath" and "evil," those are very strong words that are being bandied about like they're going out of style.

Hope you go and listen to that recording, may be a little bit of an eye-opener. And I'm glad Ripard is allowing this sort of ("sort of" being rather descriptive) debate.

@J.J. Beans

I believe I forgot to invite Ripard to prove me wrong on those points. I'm not assuming they are fact, those are my guesses and rather cynical nature coloring them. I would very much be welcome to being proved wrong on where Ripard found the recording. Gigan however addressed my other points.

How about you not use the ad hominem attacks, you might find how much more credible you become.

I won't be able to respond for a while, need to go home to charge my laptop.

Are you sure Sohkar's ISK was doubled? I was under the impression that it wasn't because he was the lucky customer who got entered into the bonus round instead. If Erotica sticks to his rules then there ae many, many more rules than stated anywhere. Stop being a mouthpiece for such a sleezy guy, it makes you look as sad as his lemming lackeys.

Actually, yes it does. E.g.: "Why would you think anyone would even listen to you on the subject of physics? You're a woman, for God's sake."

The fact that in this imaginary scenario, the respondee is in truth, a woman, doesn't make this reply less of an ad hom--one could argue it makes it more of an ad hom, as if the respondee were not a woman one could classify it as just factually wrong instead of a fallacy.

Yes, Sohkar's isk was doubled the first two times. Ero only does three plays per customer and that is it. It was on the third round the bonus room came up as he was the 100th customer that day. As the bonus room is only allowed on one's third play.

And of course how else would Sohkar have been convinced that Erotica was being truthful? At first he wanted nothing to do with Ero, and even bashed him in local.

I would also like to take this time to point out another blog by one Gorila Vengaza where he offers a snippet of his own opinion: http://gankerbumping.blogspot.com/2014/03/points-of-interest.html

@J.J. Beans

I mean calling me delusional. That is ad hom as clearly by the responses I am getting means that my arguments do mean something to someone other than myself.

I would very much like you to point out where you see this proof in my writing. If you can find it. Quite frankly I think you're just trolling.

Apparently the goons kicked out E1 for being creepy as heck. An incident involving someone having to video record themselves covered in mayonnaise was mentioned. It appears that Sohkar's experience wasn't exceptional, but rather business as usual in the bonus room...

@Louis Robichaud - Oh so now it's a VIDEO, of them COVERED in mayonnaise. At first it was just a picture of it on their chin. Then it was on their chest. Now it's a VIDEO? Please, keep unsubstantiated rumors up your rear end where they belong. Thank you kindly. :)

"Your honor, My client did NOT shoot this man with a .38! He shot him with a .32, and therefore move that the charges be dismissed!". That's ridiculous.

You'll note that I used somewhat vague language as I didn't have the facts 100% solid. But when one of the most important directors of the FREAKING GOONS (no shrinking violets there) publicly calls out E1 over a mayonnaise incident...

Sohkar flipping out and going on a rant is the entire objective of the Bonus room - to harvest tears. In some cases, that means people flip out and start shouting threats. E1 was probably *delighted* by this rant.

I don't think that you and Malcanis are disagreeing as much as you say you are. From his comments on the threadnaught he is obviously not in approving of erotica's actions, but he disagrees on the correct actions to take.

If (as you seem to be suggesting) CCP steps outside their ruleset to punish erotica, no one can feel safe in their playstyle because CCP will have shown that they will punish behaviour they disapprove of regardless of what is in the rules. If CCP aren't following a clearly defined (and public) set of rules, then no one can be sure that they are following the rules and so feel safe.

This would set a precedent that all scammers should be afraid of permabans if they cross an imaginary line from the viewpoint of someone removed from the situation. Who would want to pay their subs if they're under the constant (perceived) threat of a permaban with no notice?

And wouldn't that just be a terrible thing, if the sociopaths were afraid of permabans for acting like assholes, and not knowing what the line is. How about this: "Is this action one that would draw the ire and disgust of someone who plays video games, but not Eve?" Because every one of these sicko's knows precisely how to gauge that, regardless of how much they will say "one man's fun is another man's griefing".

If CCP had any brains and balls at all, Erotica would be gone, the corp he is in would be wiped out, and the officers in that corp also banned. THAT would send a message, bigtime.

And CCP should send a press release out explaining that they recognize that allowing the sociopaths and psychopaths like erotica, mittens, mynnna, and raivi to ruin the game for the majority of the player base is at an end.

That is how you gain new players. And for the ones that leave, well, can't see that happening. What game would they go to that tolerates even half the bad behaviour that CCP does?

I watched again on YouTube the failed lawyer's performance re: The Wis. He is no doubt, evil personified, and the number of people laughing with him, well, it just frightens me. That type pf person has no place outside of a prison wall, let alone in a game that is trying to increase the subscription base.

You seem to be missing malcanis' (and by extension) my point: once you've stepped out of the set of rules, where do you draw the line on what behaviour is ok? More specifically, how will anyone ever know where you draw the line until they get a sudden permaban?

Get rid of Ero 1?Get rid of Jita scammers?Get rid of hi-sec gankers?Get rid of gate camps on hi/lowsec gates?Get rid of bubblecamps?

All of these can be considered non-consensual pvp behaviours, and to the person on the receiving end the perpetrator is an asshole. By arbitrarily banning people for being assholes it puts all of these behaviours in danger, not just the ones you'd like to see gone from the game.

If CCP can't step out of the rules, they are basically conceding the field. Every bully knows how to work within bright lines. The heuristic is simple: if the spirit of the law is being violated while the letter is being followed, down comes the hammer. Who decides that? CCP. You agreed to give them that discretion when you signed up to play the game.

Banning Erotica 1 would not start a slippery slope to banning camps, high-sec gankers, or Jita scammers. Erotica 1, and his group's actions were designed to extract maximum humiliation long after the scam had been completed. There's no reason why scamming and ganking can't continue after CCP says 'humiliating your victim for two straight hours on teamspeak, posting his humiliation publicly, and bragging about it is beyond the pale and will not be tolerated.'

Why can't you be satisfied with having the scamee's ISK and assets? Why continue?

Because the possibility of him getting those assets back was very much real if he just cooperated. I will again remind you all that it was just one single song that got Sohkar mad. With no explanation whatsoever from him, he refused even after a change of song was offered.

@Kyria Shirako

+1 for sense of balance.

@Dersen Lowery and Anon 11:48

CCP can go outside their own rules and ban them, it will just set a precedent for future CCP actions and a precedent for expectations of their actions among players.

Anon 11:19 had it right that basically this uncertainty would be created among all players about what CCP might do when undoubtedly some players would begin reporting even the smallest incident of teamspeak shenanigans as bannable offenses. This may be due to overreaction on the part of the receiver or even malicious intent.

This uncertainty will make these players insecure in their continued existence in EVE, this uncertainty means they will jump ship. Thus subscription numbers will go down, likely (not guaranteed, but likely) dramatically.

While no there is no reason scamming and ganking couldn't continue, think what the reverberations throughout the community could be before pushing blindly for it.

@Alistair Drake> Because the possibility of him getting those assets back was very much real if he just cooperated.

Do you really believe that? I'm not sure I do. This *is* EVE, after all. ;-)

What if I told you to give me your laptop computer ("to show faith") and do some unspecified things for $1000 check? Maybe you wouldn't do it. Maybe I'm too nice a guy to put you through anything serious. (I'm too nice a guy.) How far would you go to get $1000 and your laptop back, if you'd given it to me? Public oration? Striptease routines? Physical assault? What if the check bounced anyway?

@Louis Robichaud the EULA does say CCP can currently ban any player at any time with no provocation, but those are just words until they actually go through with it.

As soon as the first case of CCP banning someone for not breaking the rules but either 'breaking the spirit' of the rules or 'working only for tears' happens, then a whole mass of uncertainty falls onto any player who is liable to do anything approaching those things (e.g. all scammers, CODE gankers, hisec wardeccers etc.). Despite the fact that CCP with in all likelihood never act outside of an extreme case, they would have shown willingness to ban someone for not 'behaving correctly' without breaking any rules.

The perceived threat from CCP would put people off far more activities than intended, and far faster than any real threat would.

@Dinsdale A single server can only accommodate so many people. For now, CCP has reached the perfect balance between profit and player load by encouraging playstyles that rely heavily on alt usage, such as scamming and ganking, as alt usage enables one to avoid all sorts of harsh consequences, (the biggest myth of EvE when you understand how to metaplay)If some huge technological leap happens and 1 million concurrent users is feasible, CCP will change its policy of coddling online antisocial behavior to attract masses of fun-loving individuals who just want to play internet spaceships, not feast on others´ disarray, or be the prey to such Schadenfreude-seeking.

@Alistair Drake: "CCP can go outside their own rules and ban them, it will just set a precedent for future CCP actions and a precedent for expectations of their actions among players."

That's the point, yes.

If CCP does come down on Erotica 1, I'm sure there will be a deliberately staged freakout where his supporters pretend that OMG you can't be a villain in EVE any more and flounce out of the game, which will continue on as it always has.

I'm disappointed to see the internet-lawyering, too. What's wrong with asking someone to sing a song on comms? Nothing. That's obviously not the issue, and it's not responsive to the question in any way. Besides, you're quick to blame the mark for sticking around when he could have left, but by the same logic, you must blame Erotica 1 for continuing on when it was obvious that the mark was starting to crack. By continuing, did he not accept responsibility for the consequences of pushing the mark over the edge? If not, then the mark didn't accept the consequences of, e.g., allowing the recording, because he clearly had no idea what he was in for. (And I'm not justifying the threats, so put that straw man away. I'm saying that everyone owns their actions, and nobody should whine about the consequences of those actions.)

Anonymous @2:06pm: What's wrong with him? I don't know, he seems to be a smart, level-headed, well-adjusted guy who enjoys playing a PVP sandbox MMO to me.

I think you'll find that we agree that continuing on is Ero's fault. The threat statement was just my opinion, as it seemed there was a beginning of going on side notes.

And yes, I agree Sohkar didn't really know what he was getting into, but that's just what happens. I think we'll have to wait on those public announcements on accepting responsibility from either of them, as far as I know neither of them have done so.

However, I won't make a false equivalence. Erotica 1 was in control of the whole show the whole time. He made the deliberate decision to push Sohkar over the edge, and he owns that.

Sohkar isn't off the hook, but given that taunting an innocent person into going over the line is a classic bullying tactic, I'm putting Ero 1 in control of that exchange as well. His venue, his responsibility.

Also, I refuse to draw an equivalence between someone lashing out powerlessly at a controlling person and a controlling person making threats as a means of control. Neither is justifiable, and the latter case didn't happen here, but let's not pretend that Sohkar's was an unprovoked aggression.

I've been on his side of that kind of bullying. I know the script by heart.

Power is the thing. I don't know that Erotica 1 is sexually aroused by the mayonnaise thing, but he's trying the most humiliating thing *he* can imagine because of its sexual imagery. Scams are perpetrated within the game, and this one did indeed end with the transfer of assets.

That's how bullies work. They cut the apparently vulnerable away from the herd, and in the case of the bonus room convene on private comms, where the control all belongs to Erotica 1 and his accomplices. That's the opposite of HTFU, and that the apologists are now defending themselves by further taunting the victim with what amounts to "why ya hittin' yourself?" only emphasizes the cyberbullying that is the heart of the issue.

Oh, there's definitely a sexual dominance thing going on in the "Philip Smith 26" Bonus Round. They've got a guy stuffing meat into his mouth and trying to sing around it, then they ask him to put some mayonnaise in there and dribble it down his chin. They ask him to come up with a camera and take a pick of his chest with Erotica 1 written on it in mayo.

https://soundcloud.com/philip-smith-24/erotica-1-customer

But Erotica and his pals say, "Gosh, what's wrong with just ASKING a guy to sing some songs? Where's the bullying and humiliation in that?"

I just wonder: Aren't those gray areas like scams and just shooting people because you can just encouraging that? Ganking apparently is mostly about tears and not ISK. So besides the stuff Erotica 1 does being on a different level, isn't the conceptually the same thing.

And if it is, is it a surprise that certain people might take it to the next and next and next stage?

In terms of getting more players in I wonder how many really enjoy that kind of environment.

People gank for profit--there's even an alliance by that name. People gank out of boredom, or curiosity. People gank because they see new players trapped in EVE's terrible low-end PVE, and they see themselves as showing the player the more fun and interesting part of the game. Some people do it for the enjoyment. Some people do it because they fell in with a group of people they enjoy hanging out with, and those people gank. Some people gank because they see people in terrible ships, or ships with terrible fits. The motives can be complex, and even ambiguous.

Tears are actually a relatively rare occurrence. A significant majority of people endure it in silence and warp off. As often as not, and maybe most often, they come from people who aren't good sports about experiencing PVP in a PVP game. Every so often, they're so epic that the gankers become uncomfortable.

What's remarkable about this is not that there are incidental tears from people who don't understand what kind of game they signed up for, or who are poorly enough socialized to think that hurling RL threats is an appropriate response to an in-game dunking. It's a prolonged and carefully machined effort to break people, even people who start out as good sports. That's where it crosses the line.

You can be the space-pixel villain in a video *game* without treating the other *players* sadistically.

My favorite DM of all time had his villains do terrible things to my characters--who, in turn, did terrible things to his villains--but he was always a good person and a great friend to me, and he remains one. That's how you do it. It's not vague or complicated at all.

For a counterpoint, I played with a DM who, as I understand it, liked his villains to do terrible things, to the point where his players assumed that any out-of-place innocent-looking creature was a trap. (TBF, they were usually right.) I eventually concluded, as the newest player, that he was an asshole and showing up wasn't worth my time, so I quit over a slow accumulation of attitude grievances.

Just because you *can* be a dick in character and a great person IRL doesn't mean that all the in-character dicks aren't dicks IRL as well.

That's not actually a counterpoint, that completes my point. The right way to "be the villain" in EVE is to play the villain in game, but to be chill with the other people playing the game. If you're a dick in game because you're a dick out of game, you're doing it wrong. If you're a sadistic bully to the other people playing the game, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

There are plenty of in-game scalawags who are just good people having fun, and who will act that way toward you if you talk to them. It's not hard.

I agree with both of your points that it is possible to play the game mechanics one way while treating players a different way.

The point I was making though is that CCP actively encourages people to conduct themselves in game in a manner which is negative. The very word "villian" conjures images of a bad guy, someone who actively seeks to sow disharmony and discord.

Even though it is possible to be a villian in PVP and someone who is nice in PVE the add doesn't make a difference in the various aspects of the game. The add wants you to behave badly. The add wants you to conduct yourself with complete disregard to other players. The add wants you to be the bad guy.

Eve has a bad reputation and will continue to have a poor population until the devs give up on this idea that they can bring in the average MMO player by encouraging bad behaviour.

The average MMO player prefers PVE servers. Prefers the ability to fight on their own terms or when they feel like it. Eve's constant threat of PVP, constant threat of being subject to the other guys villiany, constant threat of being overwhelmed by a better coordinate group is what drives players away.

The sandbox is not really a sandbox. Instead it's a theme park based on the idea of a sandbox but with rules which help the villian and hampers the hero. There is enough room in the game to cater to both groups, but the devs continue to cling to this idea of being hard, of being a viking, of being a villian.

That's why Eve is unpopular and that is why the game will never live up to it's true potential.

That's like saying that Warcraft can encourage you to be a jerk by rolling Horde.

EVE. Is. A. Game. Not only can you be a villain *in game* without treating other players like shit, but CCP probably didn't feel like spelling it out because they didn't assume that part of their player base was completely insane. You can be the villain *in game,* doing PVP, and still treat the players well while you screw over their characters. (You can also be a complete asocial jerk doing PVE--I'm not sure why you divided the types of players along that line, as it's completely irrelevant.) Not only can you do that, but anything else is poor sportsmanship, immaturity, or I-S-S-U-E-S of whatever description.

My point was that people who are playing the role of villain--or more properly, adversary, since hero/villain is a stupid, B-movie dichotomy that has no place in a deep sandbox except as a pose--but who are still chill with the people they're being in-game adversaries with, are playing the game. People who just use it as a means to engage in RL villainy are abusing the game, and abusing the players, and there's no good reason for CCP to tolerate them.

Nothing about that ad in any way encourages players to be jerks to other players. It's a game. You play a character. The *character* is a "hero" or a "villain," as you prefer. The *player* is still expected to be a civilized human being.

Four decades after the birth of D&D, this should not be difficult for anyone to understand. I think there are a few people who don't want to understand it, and who want EVE to be an outlet for the sadism or abusiveness they know they can't get away with in face to face interactions. Sucks to be them. They don't need a game that allows them to act out their fantasies, they need professional help.

Do you really feel the game mechanics of Eve Online are good enough to warrant a single player off line version?

"...it's a theme park based on the idea of a sandbox but with rules which help the villian and hampers the hero..."

That's blatantly untrue - both players, both corporations, both alliances and all coalitions have the same access to the exact same in game resources. While one group may use those elements better than the other is the point of PvP; while one group may have better organisation out side of the Eve Online client is that anyone's fault but the dis-organised group?

If three different corporations are mining the same ice belt and one decides to bring in their suicide ganking alts to reduce the field is that being the 'bad guy' or using the game mechanics for their benefit? Eve is skewed by alt characters, there's no getting around that sadly, but all entities have the option of having more than one character logged in at the same time.

"...There is enough room in the game to cater to both groups..."

There probably is, but why should there be? Why should the game be split down the middle without CCP simply offering a small server option for those that want to invite their friends and only play by themselves? Do you realize how boring that would be?

Eve Online is a PvP (Everyone Versus Everyone - that's where the name originates) game; which means every action has an equal (ish) and opposite reaction.

If my corp wants to mine the belts in the system, we can do - if someone wants to try to stop us they can, but we can also a) bury our heads in the sand and claim they're grieving us out of the game, b) find a different system on the other side of the map or c) use the same resources to defend the belts, they system, the station and our pos's and make their attempt so annoying that they give up and leave or give up and ask us to teach them how we did it. We then have even more options open to us as to what we do then.

I hope Eve never turns in to the theme park you describe because when that happens people will truly see how awful and thin the game mechanics actually are, from PvE to mining, to manufacturing and research - it's dull without player interactivity in ALL its forms.

I'm not the one who made the ad, I'm simply pointing out that CCP's very own marketing choices show the outright bias towards a style of play which subsequently is designed to attract a certain type of gamer.

You want to debate levels of bad but IMO being nice to your allies while ruining the fun of your targets is bad. Yes what E1 did is worse, but that still doesn't excuse bad play of a lesser degree.

The catch here though is what we individually consider to be bad behavior. PVP is not inherently bad nor do I think PVPers are bad people. I was with a group of folks who only fought pirates and people with low sec ratings.

My problem lies with the gankers, the groups who bring 4x the numbers of caps and supers to a subcap fight, scammers, and gate camps. I consider these actions to be bad behavior even though CCP actively recruits and brags about such actions.

All of these activities are fun for the people who are doing them but ruin the fun for the people who are on the receiving end. When you want a game to be successful you want people to log off at the end of the night with a feeling of contentment and happiness. Getting ganked when you are trying to do missions is not fun. Getting hotdropped and having your entire fleet destroyed in a matter of seconds is not fun.

I realize at this point you are probably already typing a reply, but if you are still reading you should also know that I completely support having some areas of Eve where ganks, camps, and all of the other above mentioned bad behavior can take place. Because I realize I shouldn't force everyone else to play the way I think the game should be played.

The difference is I also think there should be areas of the game where such actions can not take place. Highsec should be PVP opt in instead of non-consensual. Lowsec should be limited to capital ships and below. Gates from highsec into lowsec should have some form of protection against camps. Scamming should not be allowed in high sec.

The thing is all of those activities can be done in other areas of the game with no issue. This would allow the average MMO gamer (PVE preferred) to feel comfortable playing Eve and would increase the number of subscriptions. Which in turn will get more people to try out low and null sec increasing the population in that area of the game as well. Everyone would benefit if compromise is achieved.

Instead there is this tenacious grasp on the idea that Eve just HAS to be about PVP and anything else is to be ridiculed and driven away. "Go play hello kitty online" is a frequently quoted retort. Which means CCP would gladly turn away a paying customer who simply wants some moderation simply so the devs can cling to the idea of "HTFU."

Which is why Eve has never progressed beyond a niche market even though it gets quite a bit of mainstream press and has been around for a decade.

Game mechanics good enough? Nope. PVE needs work to make it more fun for fleet size groups. Incursions are a good step but they require about a two hour commitment which is fine on the weekends but small groups (10-15 players) are looking for content which can be done in about an hour most weeknights. This would mean something like level 5 and level 6 quality missions being made available in highsec areas. Missions would also need to have some form of scaling difficulty to allow smaller groups of 3-6 players to have a challenge as well.

Availability of content to ally players. Yes and no. On paper the answer is a clear yes. In the game the answer is a clear no. Don't believe me? Go ahead and try to find yourself a tech moon you want to mine and tell me how well that works out for you. The super large blocks of players have huge swaths of nullsec under their control so a smaller corporation has to submit themselves to the will of these sandbox bullies to even have a chance of seeing end game content.

The sandbox is a broken concept which is a great defense for people who don't want to even consider adapting the game to invite more paying customers. Sticking with the sandbox concept always leads me to think about how I would react if my kids were at the playground trying to make sandcastles and a group of older kids came over and started stomping on what my kids were creating. Either I'd talk the bullies into stopping and leaving my kids alone or we'd go find some other place to play.

Eve's sandbox has been filling up with bullies year after year because all of the kids who just want to enjoy the wonder and glory of building sand castles have been run off. All the while CCP sits on the closest park bench pointing and laughing at the kids who go somewhere else to play.

Why should the game cater to more playstyles? Simple. Revenue.As a business CCP should be highly interested in generating more revenue. One way to do that is to get more people paying a subscription fee. So having your game cater to more play styles is a great way to increase your bottom line.

The final point I'll touch on is your idea of player interactivity. Eve is without doubt the most anti-social game I've played in over 20 years of gaming. There is passive interactivity resulting from my creating something and putting it on the market, but I never have to actually interact with another player for that transaction to happen.

There are all kinds of people flying around the systems in Eve, but how often do you see people talking and joking? The major trade hubs have too much scam spam to even read local text. The major mission hubs have some banter but for the most part people are quiet and not attracting attention. Then there are the backwater systems where 10-15 players will spend an hour mining or doing missions with not a word typed.

Eve is all about making people paranoid. The less you talk the less attention you attract making you less likely to get ganked. Even corporations can be intimidating because you never know when someone is going to turn traitor and steal assets or destroy ships in the middle of a fight.

The number one rule of Eve is never fly what you aren't willing to risk and in a lot of cases people aren't willing to risk making themselves vulnerable.

It's very hard to trust someone in Eve when the biggest and most celebrated stories over the years are the betrayals, the scams, the high cost ganks.

Suspecting every other player you see in the game is about as anti-social as it gets. Yet CCP seems to relish this type of reputation instead of taking steps to actually attract players to the game.

You seem to want CCP to change their own game to suit your playstyle over their own game design choices for the seemingly reasonable assumption that CCP wants to increase their profit margin.

They wouldn't say no of course but not at the expense of their game.

Turning Eve online into a themepark with consensual pvp areas will drive many people out of the game, all you'll attract are the anti social players who never interact with other people in local, never update their game play and sooner or later get bored with mining and pve missions and quit the game saying how dull it is.

The systems are kfilled with these players already, imagine if all the mavens of Eve left for different games or real life.

No headlines, no pvp of any kind, over saturated markets and a lot of bored players.

If you want to mine in peace and kill monsters, Minecraft offers a superior quality experience that you can talyor to your own preference.

I think the point of the original blog post which sparked all of this debate is that CCP needs to change something because it's attracting the wrong kind of players.

I agree with you that making PVP in highsec consensual can cause people to leave the game, but these are the type of people who prey on those that are weaker. This type of play ultimately drives away more paying customers to cater to small contingent of gankers.

As for the interaction piece, please read above where I talk about the fact CCP actively promotes anti social behavior. If people didn't have to worry about being ganked all the time I can guarantee there would be a lot more interaction and social activity amongst the players. MMO gamers want to interact with other people, but Eve rules make interaction foolish for PVE players most of the time.

PVE would need to be worked on as mentioned above. PVP would still happen all over low and null. Markets would balance out depending on supply and demand, which CCP can artificially adjust through resource shifting anyway.

My suggestion wouldn't be the end of Eve. Instead I think it would actually cause the game to grow and bring in more players. The biggest difference would be gankers and other "villians" would have to assume more risk by operating in low and null instead of having it easy in highsec.

Ripard and Malcanis are talking apples and oranges. Ripard (largely) addresses someone's behavior and ethics. Malcanis (largely) addresses gameplay rules and mechanisms for bans/exclusion. Jester notes that CCP isn't required to follow previously-set rules to ban someone, and he is correct. Malcanis says that CCP *should* follow set procedures and rules, and he is correct.

So instead of conflating these issues let's address them separately. A debate over one issue (ethics & out-of-game interaction) is distinct, but related to, the debate over the other (game rules/policies/enforcement mechanisms). Both are valid and should be addressed.

Going to amend my own statement. Since Jester himself says they disagree over the issue I'll take him at his word.

From his public statements that I've seen, it looks like Malcanis is more concerned about rules & policies governing how out-of-game behavior can or should affect in-game participation. Also a worthwhile discussion but tangential to Ripard's piece, and an easy way to defer from taking a stand against bullying.

The majority of the debate right now on the eve forum is about Erotica 1 getting ban or not. We should focus more on if CCP should add this kind of situation to the TOS/EULA to prevent it in the futur or not.

I am doing mandatory (and paid!) training period before graduating in a field belonging to healthcare. Because of the players like Erotica1 and his supporters I would not dare to publicly announce that I play EVE Online. Porn? That's fine. Drinking lot of alcohol is fine, as long as I am not inebriated at work. EVE... I would not want to get associated with people like Erotica1. Until CCP cleans itself and its games one way or another, it will remain tainted in similar way to a neo-nazi rally does.

You want more target to shoot? Want CCP to invest more into the game we love?Want new players to come to the game and become members of the community?Want the longevity of the game to last long enough so you can get into your titan/super someday?

Then we need to get rid of shit like these types of people. One bad apple can spoil the bunch. Ban all of those players in the bonus room, make an example of them, and take a firm stance against shitheads like them.

The victim was right "this is why eve sucks balls"....

Bravo Rip for taking up the cause and caring about the game enough to post 2-3-4-5+ posts about this.

Keep on the fight man, its the right thing to do for us and the game we all love.

No Eve sucks because the game mechanics are very thin; only when people interact are headlines and content generated.

Can you imagine playing a single player - or even limited (under 50) private server version of Eve Online?

"The victim was right "this is why eve sucks balls"...." - the 'victim' or should I say willing participant thinks Eve sucks balls because he lost.

He wanted to double his Isk, but failed. He is angry at his failure of doubling his net worth in a pixel-spaceship game. He is probably embarrassed at dragging his wife in to the whole shebang too and having to explain to her why he 'had' to give away all his assets.

Seeing your net worth double in your minds eye is not being a victim; it's being greedy.

Creating and sending an api key, singing on Team Speak, reading from a web page is not torture - maybe for those listening to someone who can't sing.

Malcanis' entire history in EVE online has been one of being direspectful with people on the forums. Honestly, his personality is not one suited for any sort of public representation. I wouldn't go so far as to call him as bad as Erotica 1, but he is certainly one of EVE's major jerks. The only reason he was elected to the CSM is the fact that there are sufficient other jerks in the game to vote for him. If CCP starts banning Erotica 1's sort of activities, it threatens Malcanis' power base. Sure, he's not running for CSM9, but if he does decide to run again in the future, he'll want to make sure as many like-minded players are still in the game as possible.

The TOS/EULA already permits CCP to ban whoever the hell they please, for any reason or no reason at all.

Understandably, CCP doesn't LIKE using that part of it, because it leads to threadnaughts and upheaval.

Can't we please EVERYONE in this case by CCP just going: "Okay, we WILL ban Ero on this. Don't worry, you'll have to be just as big a dick as him to qualify for the same treatment, and so far none of you has been..." instead of them trying to modify the EULA in some way?

I'm conflicted about the larger point you're making, Ripard. Sure, it WOULD be nice if the game got a better rep, and thus scared away less potential players. But how much of the game we know and love are we willing to sacrifice to do so? Are we, frex, willing to make hisec a non-PvP zone? Or a PvP-only-on-wardec zone? Both of those look like going WAY too far for me... But what COULD we do?

Also, the person who's calling Malcanis a sociopath is bad and should feel bad. Apart from the fact that Malc is a nice guy, he's probably done more for new players in this game, both on the forums and in-game, than anybody who's not an EVE-UNI director.

The low retention of new players in EVE has nothing to do with scammers and griefers. It has everything to do with the fact that EVE is choked full of bad game mechanics. The PvE is bad. The PvP is bad. The social interaction is bad. And its main selling point - claimable nullsec - is just superbad. It has bad lore. It has bad events. It has bad code.

Most of the veterans are simply used to the fact that things suck. For people new game there is no excuse for it. This is the reason why they quit. Not some scam they never heard about done by a guy they never heard about.

I quit not because of the mechanics, but because I didn't want to be part of this community as it stands. Anecdotal, I know, but even an anecdote is a counterpoint to ">Nothing< to do with scammers and griefers."

These are not just your run of the mill MMO "assholes." This is a very special brand of sociopath, one spawned in the culture dish EVE's hands-off policy creates. EVE currently has a community that courts and exalts the horrendous behavior it engenders. Too many people are not only defending, but aspiring to this level of atrocious behavior for me to want to be part of it. There is no shame in being alive, but as it stands, there is potentially shame in being an EVE player.

When it came time to resubscribe, I asked myself what I was doing all this for; I realized was acquiring ISK, Skill Points and power for a meager standing within a community I wanted little to do with.

Besides: I've got a lot invested in life. I've got substantially less invested in EVE. Quitting Life means ending everything I am or ever will be; Quitting EVE means not giving CCP money. I am decidedly prepared to do the latter.

Not right, but not wrong, either. Guys like Psychotic Monk have a very good point that the tutorial->mining corp/L1s and L2s->quit cycle is poisonous to the game. It's stultifying, because the low-level PVE in this game, and a good part of the mid-to-high-level PVE, is stultifying, and the incentive structure for missions actively discourage group participation (something even *mining* gets right).

We lose a lot more players to an inability to connect to the right social network in time.

And yes, we lose players to gankers and scammers (I won't use "grief," because that has a very narrow definition in EVE). We also gain some enthusiastic players that way, so the effect is not unambiguously bad, and the richness it adds to the game is IMO worth it.

But we're not talking about ganking or scamming here. The issue isn't Erotica 1's ISK doubling game, which is entirely legit as an EVE mechanic. It stops being illegitimate where there stops being any in-game point in continuing. You can say, the guy didn't have to stay there; but Erotica 1 didn't have to go there, either. Personal responsibility is a two-way street.

Player retention or the lack of it isn't just about the NPE it can also be claimed that the empire corps with CEO's who are just awful at being a leader and director do more damage than any ganker or awoxer.

"We lose a lot more players to an inability to connect to the right social network in time."

One hundred percent spot on. If the CEO player had to take a test on Eve mechanics before opening a corp it would certainly go towards creating a better environment where new players looking to join corporations could ensure they don't end up in a bad corp.

I know the bad corp umbrella can be wide - let's say for basics, lack of focus, no directions, high corp tax with minimal returns, constant single activity during new player time zone (be it mining ops, or mission ops). Not teaching new players about overview settings, out of game information and reporting sites. That's for starters.

I believe Erotica 1 to be a very clever person who would have (and have done) pulled back on the reigns if and only IF the person showed signs of weakness. The guy wasn't weak, he knew EXACTLY what he was saying and to whom - he also knew the rules of the game as well; at worst Erotica 1 is only guilty of allowing the guy to display his true nature.

Oh, I think plenty of Ero 1's true nature is on display there, and the signs of weakness only egged him on.

As far as corps go, that's a tricky question, and it's one that's difficult for me to answer: I already knew who I was going to be flying with before I even downloaded the client, and the corp includes, among others, 2006-era veterans, so I was able to very neatly skip over all of the new-player pitfalls and get right into the game. I mention that because I want it to be clear that what follows is somewhat informed speculation on my part, not personal experience, and I want to be clear up front that I know that I could be completely full of shit here. I don't believe I am, but you've been warned. :-D

Problem #1: connecting with people. CCP made this harder by upping the tax imposed by NPC corps, which drove active, engaged players into tax shelter corps and out of the NPC corp chat channels. The people who remain are either alts of established players who'll be around for fourteen days, a few brave souls who are trying to do right by new players (shoutout to CAS), and a lot of bitter vets who give terrible advice, and who don't care about the 11% tax rate because they don't do anything anymore. Then you get random corps recruiting in Local. There is nothing in the tutorial introducing new players to corporations, or telling them how to do a search for them, or anything. This is all dumb and counterproductive. (Don't get me started on the tutorials.)

I emphatically do *not* like the idea of prohibiting new players from starting corps. The people who enjoy learning by burning are the people we want in the game--as long as they learn, of course. Nor would I begrudge new players the dignity of failure. If someone else tells you what works, you don't know why for yourself. You don't really understand why it works, because you haven't failed, and if you haven't failed then you haven't really tried. This is conventional wisdom when it comes to every form of PVP in the game. I'm not sure why it's thrown out the window when it comes to forming corporations.

Nevertheless, there are two problems confronting the intrepid newbie: the corporation interface is a counterintuitive, half-assed pile of shit filled with gratuitous pitfalls, and; it's not necessarily easy to find a veteran who is familiar with it. This ball is firmly in CCP's court.

As for the newbie who just wants to join up with some people and do stuff, and has no idea where to turn? I'm not sure how to solve the problem that go-getters and enablers are few and far between, and the subset of them that will handhold abject newbies is even harder to find. The way to contact corps and alliances is via diplomats, which is something that no new player will know because it's a player-invented mechanic, not anything anywhere in the documentation. There are lots of helpful player-created chat channels, but you have to know their names and you have to know how to join them.

The very least that the game could do is stop throwing up gratuitous roadblocks. The rest of it is a lot trickier.

PS: The only way I could see limiting the ability of newbies to start corps is if starter corps were a *lot* more like real corps, with (very easily attained) doctrines, FCs, etc. and an easy way for new players to discover new corps. Maybe even a "trial" corporate role of 21 days, with some restrictions on what they could do, but also on what could be done to them, until they either left or joined as full members?

It's bad apples like this is one of the reasons I don't resubscribe. I'm not going to share a small universe with psychopaths/sociopaths like this. I avoid these people in real life, I'll be damned if I share my leisure time with them.

What he does is reprehensible in many respects,in fact it makes my skin crawl , but he simply exploited the "scammer" concept and made it sicko art. Granted, it is disturbing and cruel, but CCP gave him the opening in their game to his indulge his natural inclinations. It doesn't make him unique, there are many wannabes, many in this thread, it just makes him exceptionally good at something truly awful.

Instead of trying to have him banned' this should be a discussion over what the Eve community wants from CCP and their game. 160+ pages of impassioned discussion shows a sharp divide in what some people feel is acceptable behavior. Of course, many in this thread have also come out to troll and obfuscate the issue, but there is a solid core of people on both sides of the issue that raise fair points.

We need our Evil Emperors (TheMittani), our Tywin Lannister (Baltec1) and the other assorted scoundrels out there, we even need the phosphorescent green mold that accumulates under many space urinals (The New Order).

What we don't need is a Hannibal Lector mind humping his prey before eating their liver with a nice Chianti, it's not good press, it's not good for player retention and it is not good for the community.

That recording is truly awful and if it evokes such a primal response Eve players (arguably a harder bunch than average) imagine it in the hands of a politician that wants to add restrictions to gaming, mother's being asked for their cc# so a new guy can make an account etc.etc.

Our Hannibal is obviously extremely intelligent and he can change his act if he chooses to, so banning, not the best option in my opinion. He did a disgusting thing, but many things I see in this game, particularly in this thread, which seems to have attracted the worst of the worst in this game, sicken me. However, it's not my game to say what is acceptable; CCP and the community will have to decide.

Lastly, I think E1 should remove himself from consideration for the CSM, for better or worse this thread has brought his behavior in the game to the forefront of a relatively large community. I wouldn't want to have my real name out in public after it I was perceived to have taken advantage of someone from a vulnerable population. No, it's not necessarily fair but it is what it is.

Part of Eve is the fact that CCP decided along time ago that they would not have a stance on player morals. I believe the quote is something like Eve players are so nice when you meet them because they get all the nastiness out in game. This never crossed the line into the real world until the victim started threatening erotica in game even. And made real life threats while claiming to be some kind of raciest Russian with "double citizenship bitch." Mean while the asshole scamming him is completely calm and just asks for the mark to not curse please. Like a customer service agent handling the same thing after its happened IRL, for real assets not just pixels. No one is going to jail and Eve is ment to simulate capitalism to its extreme will this is it. http://www.dianamey.com/telemarketing-statistics/ instead of rallying against it in a fucking game how bout trying to change the real world first. Maybe that is part of the reason this piece of moving art we play in everyday exists in the first place, to say something about humanity.

Thing is, macrocosma and microcosm are intertwined. If you let a community become a den of lies, deceit, manipulation, and emotional preying on each other, you´re sending the signal for the general world to do the same.

Hey telemarketers are despicable ppl alot of the time. But you know what if one of them calls you using the exact techniques used by erotica in this TS and you buy a $500 magazine subscription you have to pay for it. Its not even illegal to do things worse than this IRL most of them time. Tbh I would be shocked if erotica and a few of his buddies weren't involved in telesales of some kind. The stuff this idiot mark falls for is simple manipulation and in this day and age if you are seceptiable to that I just feel sorry for you. At the end of the day my mother had this to say mom "They really took his money?'" me "no just in game stuff." mom "sounds like someone needs to get a life."

"Just in game stuff" does not cover the sweat blood and tears of EVE assets does it? We are not talking Candy Crush here. Don't bother trying to explain the difference to mom either.Try; mom, have you ever lost your house keys and cried at the thought of your own stupidity locking you away from everything you own?Now imagine that you didn't lose it, you gave it to someone you naively trusted and they dangled them in front of you for hours until you cracked and realised that they were never ever within your reach.YOU know how hard you work for EVE stuff.Yeah someone should get a life, the bastards that think that that is funny.

Sounds like someone else needs to get a life......I've lost plenty of assets in eve never made real life threats or went on raciest rants. I'd bet I've lost pry 100x what this guy did just playing the game(pry just on this toons kb)......maybe you shouldn't get so attached to pixels. Why would I have to explain things in a context that doesn't exist and that's the problem here. This guy lost nothing IRL nothing. You can try to bend the narrative to make it look worse than it is but it's not erotica could have easily got this dumb ass to let him borrow a car or something for instance but he didn't(oh and while you are giving me your API we also need the credit card number you subscribe with.). As for my mom losing the keys to her house and crying? I'd say she would pry just go in thru the garage door and then have me change her locks but, She's a wise woman and you are what 17?

Are you really comparing killboard losses to this? You don't ever expect to get those ships back--in fact, CCP's logs were so terrible that veteran players have stopped expecting that they'll get their ships back even when there's a glitch in the game. So there's no analogy there, sorry.

As for the freakout and the racist rant: The ranter owns what he said, full stop. But Erotica 1 owns his decision to push him over the edge, too. Nothing anywhere in EVE encourages that sort of behavior.

As for telemarketers: show me one who coaxes all your stuff from you first and I'll concede the point. What he is more like is a confidence man, able to rob people blind and get away scot free because hey, the victim signed it all away legally! he didn't break any laws!

17 at heart Fire Bush and I have nothing but respect for your mother.I admit, all my digital assets, EVE and otherwise are of value to me.Say "electromagnetic pulse" five times fast to make my heart beat faster.Don't be an apologist for Erotica 1 mate, he's quite capable of speaking for himself.

And I think they are all scum but they have the right to play eve within the rules.Just like these shitty company's can rip ppl off all day in the real world as long as they don't break the rules (law).

I believe that the crux of the matter is intent. What is not clearly established from this Erotica person if what the intent is. If it is to abuse or not - that is required from the horses mouth.Then put the question - what would replacing the tasks with a simple dice roll - would that do the trick? If Erotica did that it would show that he/she/it was not the ogre they are made out to be.

I believe that believing the crux of the matter is intent is just another case of the feeble argument about drawing the line. Courts have been finding intent for a few centuries now. They don't ask the guy they look at the guy's actions.

By your rules, noting can ever be punished unless you hear intent from the horse's mouth. I summit that your argument comes from the other end of the horse.

and now on a more serious note...the 'victim' isnt a victim at all. he was a willing participant. we all know when we log in to eve we are 'agreeing to the rules of the game' be they ccp directives or community accepted unspoken assumptions/agreements. this person allowed himself to be humiliated. i know it may sound harsh, but couldnt he have disconnected at anytime during the evil session? he chose not to for whatever reasoning he had... BUT IT WAS HIS CHOICE. i understand the moral freight train has left the roundhouse, but maybe i can throw some water in the firebox and take off some of the steam. what happened to this guy happens to us all everyday in real life. humiliation perpetrated on us by the government and we all passively accept it because we have an innate slave mentality built into all of us. (there partridge that oughta raise the heat some more)

I don't believe that to be the case.Addictive personalities ( the type that play gambling machines/ lotto etc.) do so because of the reward function in the brain that compels them to continue. This chemical reaction allows you to believe that more time spent will deliver a winning result. Our reasoning also tells us that the amount of effort already invested should (in a fair world) produce results and to "quit" now would not produce the optimum benefit. This is inherent in all human transactions and is taught in advertising as an exploitable instance. So the possibility was that he couldn't ALLOW himself to quit/fail as that was not in the equation. Just to re-enforce that, the person remarked he was an air traffic controller (if he was telling the truth) - I would want these people to be this type if my life depended on it as I'm sure you would as well.I stand by my initial comment that Erotica, being the instigator of the process needs to express intent - and if the intent is to humiliate for purposes of amusement, then something needs to be done about it.

The state of the game is already about hurting others not building up, the community is all about the damage you can do, not what you can build up.

Killmails are celebrated, idiots are humiliated, and a ship worth a few billion isk is already news worth even in your blog, even more so if the guy who lost it, does lose those shiny ships on regular base.

At the same time it is completely ignored that the game mechanics give you the means to generate enough income to lose a carrier each week. But no one will celebrate the guy who does exactly this: Farming and put his farmed play money at risk.

It´s always about the damage you can inflict, the pain you can cause, not about what you can build up.

Um.. No not really - it's about what you can achieve. Someone had to build up their assets, be it farmed Isk, or shiny flying officer fitted bling-mobile. Someone had to claim that space and deal with the logistics that that statement implies

In a PvP game there will be a loser and a winner.

Of course it's about the damage you can inflict, no one celebrates a player for having 200 deaths for 1 assisted kill in any other game. Why should Eve be different?

Long time no see o/. Since I first joined EVE, you've been in the corner of my eye. You put Erotica1 in a noob HS Aussie corp that took me in and tried to teach me a little about EVE (I believe I was 1-2 months along? tops?). For their trouble, you spied out their POS's, had beancounter (alt) Wardec them, and blew up my Cormorant. But, you also took me aside, explained that my fitting was bad and how to improve it, and kicked me ISK to help me along. This was an important lesson in the harshness I had heard about EVE, but also that - hey! maybe even the "baddies" are still respectful, well-meaning members of the EVE community, right? Right? Well sometimes yes, but...

Well, after that you still had me in private convo, so you bragged about your wallet. You flashed me a gif of the total. I asked how you managed to acquire so much. Then you start flashing me images of conversations you'd trolled out of ISK doubling schemes. Tons and tons of them. You seemed to drag these convo's out forever. I remember one I was reading, thinking at the time "Criminy... he's not preying on this guy's greed; he's getting off on this guy's loneliness and despair".

Since then, I've always kept your activities in the corner of my eye. Kind of the same way a person might keep an eye on the old neighbor that always seems to stare way too long out his bay window at the local children playing in the street. I heard about the mayo incident, the C&P threads you and your alts would troll until they were locked, the 'pod yourself to alpha clone' incident, the murmurs and rumors that you were behind scam websites like EVE-Bazaar.com, and countless other stories like these. I've seen the CODE nonsense you band about. Your CSM 'attempts'. I even saw your hissy fit when CCP restored that one guy's SP. I thought you quit the game at that point... guess that was too much to hope.

After that first encounter, you offered to take me in and teach me the ropes. I politely declined and went on my way. Why didn't I take you up on that offer? Because of those convo's you showed me. There's scamming... and then there's what you do. It's cruel. It's creepy.

Parting an idiot from his ISK? By all means - go nuts people. But that's not what you're doing. Sure, you do scam them, but as a means to an end. It's not about the scam. You want to humiliate them. Poke them. Toy with them. Make them cry.

That's not gameplay, and this behavior sure as hell has no place being 'acceptable' in my sandbox. If I'm not being clear enough, I'm saying that I agree you and your alt accounts need a swift and permanent ban.

If anyone doesn't agree with it, you are welcome to follow him out the airlock.

Leaving aside for one second the soundcloud recording, Erotica1 should be banned for utterly stupidity, you can be a sociopath in every single game with human interaction, and Eve Online gives to any player so many ingame tools to actually destroy peoples work, time and wallet, and then receive all the "well earned" e-fame, if you enjoy that; that the mere existance of the "bonus room" is innecesary, but even if you lack the hability to make you own path of ruined accounts and the only way to addres that "need" is the so called "bonus room" the absolutely idiocy of uploading the recording should be enough reason to ban him and his minions.

And I really mean it, if you can (and should) fire an employee that gives your business a bad reputation that hits your income, even if their action where in their own time, and you can deny your service to an unpleasant client, CCP can, should, and probably will, end their relationship with this dude.

That said Jester I don´t think we need new rules. And also don´t think that this behaviors are the main wall against new players crash. The boring pve, mining, the late 90´s windows brand quality IU and around other one hundred game issues are. (IMHO).

Our difference, such as it was, was largely procedural. If tasking CCP with following their own rules and being accountable and being transparent about how they deal with a hot-button issue with some ambiguous characteristics (to put it mildly) is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

There is some serious potential for abuse and error with the solutions being driven by hot-headed, emotion-based posting.

I want above all to make sure that CCP doesn't lay themsleves open to future metagaming tactics and that EVE players aren't dealt with by mob justice but according to a known and accountable set of rules.

Malcanis, it has been shown many times over that this is already covered within CCP's rules, so I don't know where you get off tossing around accusations of them not following or being accountable to rules if they choose to take action in this case.

I would agree with this, but I'm also curious if the API was used to steal this guy's assets. That I think is where one could draw the line, right? Just like if someone stole your credit card number, or phished your EVE Online user & password. Wouldn't this be against the EULA?

I'd agree though, CCP really shouldn't go banning people because they are jerks. Not that I don't think that CCP can, because it's just a game and CCP can do whatever they want for whatever reason.

That said though, from my advertising background I would think it might be a short-term PR benefit, but I also think the laissez-faire reputation that EVE has earned will be harmed in the long run.

BTW, I remember the 80's when mothers were saying D&D was satanic, but I also remember them saying Zelda and Mario were as well. D&D is huge today. The only thing I might urge CCP to do is provide more in-game warnings to new players and highlight specific scams and what to avoid.

Arbitrary abuse of the rules should be met with executive action. You can't split E1's behavior into 1,000 lines, each one slightly nastier than the former, and say "here is the last line, if you cross it, you're gone".

Someone must step forward and make a executive decission to get rid a toxic customer. And preferably do that before he becomes a notorious toxic customer... but here's CCP what we talk about. Likely they are on session 2 of 15 of the process to draw a plan to make a decission to warn E1 if he makes someone kill himself.

Meanwhile, EVE is that game where a guy tortured another for two hours over an ingame matter and 200 pages later some still felt discussing wether the abuser should keep being a member of the community.

Not the point. Most players, myself included, find the behavior awful. But that doesn't make it illegal, or actionable, or bannable under the EULA or TOS. Big difference between being mean or a "bad person" and being a criminal.

Criminality is a straw man. The question is, in fact, whether it's in CCP's interest to have someone like him in the game. They have absolute discretion in the matter.

His defenders love to ask which bright, legal line he crossed, but that's a deliberate distraction. Every good con artist has made an art of toeing the line. That's why it's important for CCP to be able to exercise discretion. A handful of Internet lawyers can howl about it as much as they want to, and it won't change the question, which is, simply, does CCP want a player in the game who treats other players like that?

The same argument applies to players who make RL threats, although when they've been goaded into it I would extend some liability to the person who did the goading. None of that is good for the game at all.

Criminality is not a "straw man" because if a crime was actually commited, CCP would have no choice but to react. The fact that you freely admit they have an absolute discretion in this case just serves to underline that no crime was commited and no EULA was broken. Which means there was no "torture" or "cyber-bullying" as both qualify as crimes.

No crime is committed by confidence men, either, which is why there are lots of discretionary areas in real-world laws to give law enforcement a way to nab people who know how to play the system.

If you actually believe that nothing bad happened because no laws were broken, I don't really know what to tell you. Do you also believe that everyone who has broken any law has done something bad? (Hint: Laws, and their in-game analogs, are social contracts, subject to change over time. The problem of something horrible being done within the color of the law, or of what's allowed, is a frequent catalyst for change, which is why we're having this conversation.)

"Because make no mistake: what Erotica 1 and his cronies do isn't about the scams. I don't have a problem with scams. But by the time his victims are in the bonus room for 10 or 12 minutes, the scam is over: the perpetrators of these despicable things already have the victim's assets and ISK. They've already "won.""

Yeah, but after those 10 minutes, the victim is given the chance to win his assets and ISK back (multiplied). If they didn't have the chance to win it back, and indeed there are winners, then the Bonus Room would be a scam.

It would be more accurate to say that the chance is dangled in front of the participant for as long as it amuses Erotica 1, and made whole when it amuses Erotica 1. Curiously, a great many of his satisfied customers are fellow "high sec content creators" while a great many of his marks are not.

It doesn't *always* have to fail to be a scam, and even if it isn't, you have to have some serious issues to denigrate people that way, for that long, for any reason--and certainly any reason having to do with space pixels in a video game.

If the mark is greedy for hanging on to the chance to get 5x his spacebux back, how is E1 not greedy for dangling it in front of them for *hours*? Both actions assign a completely outsized amount of value to what, finally, is CCP's non-transferable property.

And nice job trying to say that the pacing is 100% the victim's, but it's not. It's E1's show. It can move along exactly as fast as he wants it to and call it whenever he wants to. Oh, and there's a very distinct pattern to who wins and who doesn't, which you also skipped right on by.

I'm not tarnishing it, its doing that all by itself under the encouragement of CCP.

There's always good apples in a fruit basket. But once some of it starts to spoil, you either get rid of the rotten fruit or willingly leave it there and allow it to spread to the rest of the basket.

The overall culture of EVE is sliding toward the antisocial elements of the game. All the people rushing to Erotica's defense are the proof of that.

Tear collection to one degree or another is the main motivating force behind a large and growing group of players in EVE. Likely its been accelerated by the proliferation of EVE news sites and the like, that support those play styles.

In a milder form, what is with the average EVE player's obsession with trolling through killboards to find ALODs? What is an ALOD if not simply an opportunity to laugh at someone's misfortune or carelessness? Or worse to seek to rub salt in the wound of the victim?

What Erotica 1 and his "friends" did is bullying. It also happened on the internet, therefore cyber-bullying. Is it the worst form of cyber-bullying that exists no. That doesn't mean that it wasn't.

I not sure what Erotica 1 did broke the current TOS or EULA, but clearly he is well versed in the rules so that he can defend his horrible actions to be allowed to source other victims from in the game. Much like career criminals become well versed in the law and their rights in order to get away with more and more harmful things until the society comes down on them.

Sohkar clearly crossed a line with the threats. Since it sounds like they were made in game chat he should get what ever the normal punishment is for those. Though he did also apologize later.

A few rules that CCP could implement that could help prevent stuff like this in the future or at least punish people like this in the future.

-You are not allowed to scam people out of their in game assets out of the game.

-You are not allowed to incite (bait,coerce, choose best legal word here) people to break the TOS and EULA in or out of game. (though may need wording to allow scams in game)((Which I'm still ok with))

-You may not use Eve Online to find victims to cyber-bully.

Are these rules a little vague, yes, yes they are. Are some of the rules in the TOS and EULA already vague, yes, yes they are.Would it be horrible if we where decent to each other? While trying to take over New Eden and destroy all competition.

Though in the current TOS it is clear CCP owns all your stuff in game including the value to the time you have played and the value that has. CCP can clearly just take Erotica 1's stuff and ban all his accounts without amending the EULA or TOS at all. If they also published a devblog about it, this would probably be a good enough deterrent to curb some of the worst behavior.

To the trolls in this thread, thank you for providing CCP with ample evidence that there is something really wrong going on that they need to make a decision on.

CCP can not possibly be expected to police outside agencies that are beyond their control.

Why would you want to remove the risk from Eve? Would you be happy playing a single player or private limited (50 people max) server for your own family and friends? Think carefully about this because the mechanics such as they are would be revealed to be very shallow indeed.

I don't think they would have to work very hard to police people who publish online their harassment of other people.

I think it is in their business interests to do that.

I don't think in-game scamming should be removed from eve online. Though I do wonder if the game would be better without it. I'm not sure what value it brings to the game, the community or to CCP. Though I wouldn't want CCP spending a lot of time on controlling it.

I think in-game spying, in-game non-consensual pvp, in-game suicide ganking should all remain in the system.

In terms of real life threats of suicide CCP already responds to things that happen outside of the game. And this doesn't require as much work or an immediate of a response. A simple after the fact ban will work over the long term just fine.

Really hope the ball keeps rolling on this subject. I'm often surprised by how fiercely people will argue about things they'll never understand. What's also interesting is the lengths people will go to change the argument when they find themselves on a side where they can't properly articulate or express their opinions.But a question I'd love a straight answer to is;When is it a bad idea to inspect and critically assess the quality of the community you're a part of?

As a side note, it's comforting to hope that the EVE community can't get too out of hand CCP could still just switch off the servers and put an end to the whole train wreck once and for all ;p

You could have taken a stand. You could have used your position to make the game a better place rather than fight for a status quo where a whacked out pervert who gets off on asking for pics of mayo being dribbled over someone's mouth gets his freakish play style validated.

You could have done all of this while still ensuring that you fought to preserve the play-styles that might be threatened by CCP action. You could have advocated for a "one off" punishment contingent on if and only if more evidence was produced,

You could have recognized the community's right to self-censure rather than contemptuously dismiss them as "a pitch fork wielding mob." That statement is in large part why the media was contacted so early in the thread and that is not a good thing for the game.

In the end the community won despite your efforts to the contrary. He was found out to be a whacked out freak that couldn't handle the idea of taking his own medicine when his own personal life was exposed.

You are squarely on the wrong side of history on his one and you should be ashamed.

I know you won't though because you are convinced of your righteousness. I feel sad for you.

I find it highly amusing how you think that "being on the right side of history" equals "being right".

Malcanis didn't play the devil's advocate. He simply applied basic logic to a situation that had - and still has - almost everyone else wave their arms, run around and should "Won't someone think of the children!". Replace "children" with "noobs" if you wish.

And community didn't "win". Community will "win" when CCP bans Erotica 1 even though he did not break any in-game rules, and did not break any laws.

Maxxor, if you didn't want someone who would advocate that CCP follow due process, act transparently and apply the rules when banning a player, rather than just doing whatever the mob demands and opening up visible players for being banned every time 10 guys get a hair up their ass about something, then you shouldn't have voted for me in the first place.

If you didn't want someone who would hold CCP to account and ensure fair treatment was applied, then you shouldn't have voted for me in the first place.

If you didn't want someone who wanted to make sure that things were done correctly in order to make sure that there was no scope for anyone to wave the martyr's flag afterwards and rally even more people into the same activities, then you shouldn't have voted for me in the first place.

If you didn't want someone who cared about preventing negative consequences, then you shouldn't have voted for me in the first place.

If you didn't want someone who cared more about helping CCP to avoid damaging EVE than being popular, then you shouldn't have voted for me in the first place.

It kind of is the games fault when such behavior is considered acceptable. Play WoT and if someone tries to harass and humiliate you simply click the "report harassment" button. This clearly shows that certain behavior is not allowed nor tolerated. Eve has no such button which means when someone abuses another player it's all good. In fact the dev's might just tell the victim to HTFU or go play hello kitty online.

To all saying that there were no rules forbidding this.. remember this. it was legal to kill jews in germany once.

Jester i suggest sending this story to CNN and buzzfeed

a also believe that E1 can go to jail for what he did. He lives in USA and if prosecuted he will have a hard time proving that it was just a game in front of Jury. Especially if the target was mentally ill (sokhar).

I just wanted to say thanks for raising this issue. No matter what it is that a player personally thinks about the issue, its definitely an elephant in the room and one that deserves a definitive response from CCP.

I would compare Erotica 1 and his ilk to a cancerous growth, which if left unchecked, will spread until the whole body is diseased beyond the point that it can be saved.

To remove such a growth, you not only have to cut it out, but also remove a fair portion of the surrounding tissue just to be sure that you've gotten all the affected cells.

This is why I would advocate not only banning Erotica 1, but also anyone else who participated in or is otherwise associated with his "bonus room" activities. Also, I would take a hard look at all those supporting and defending these activities, as they seem to pose a similar threat in terms of attitude and what is presumed to be acceptable behavior. A round of temporary bans may be necessary as a bit of a wake-up call for soem of these people.

Here's my comment I included to CCP with each cancellation:--I'm canceling all three of my accounts.

Jester lays out the issues with the culture inside of Eve better than I could. Here is the first of the blog posts in the series that address the issues.

http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-bonus-round.html

Eve is a game that frankly tends to reward sociopath type behaviors. It's being done under the guise of creating a 'wild west' environment, but when you eliminate any real, long-term consequences to negative actions ultimately you push the pendulum past the behaviors that were ever seen in the actual wild west.

You have a great game when it comes to the mechanics. I love the manufacturing and trading side of things, as well as the ability for players to claim sov space. Unfortunately you've created a situation where there are no penalties for terrible behavior—in game or out of game.

Security status should mean something. In the real world the police vigorously pursue criminals. Concord should attack and pod criminals. It should frankly be impossible for someone with -10 status to make it all of the way to Jita in pod or in a ship either one.

In the real world, when you knowingly interact with criminals you become a criminal yourself—with real consequences. Contracting goods directly to criminals should result in the Sec status of the contractor going down.

Tags for sec should be eliminated as it makes it too easy for someone to reform. That is nothing at all like the real world would be.

Without real consequences, you're not creating a realistic universe, you're simply catering to the darkest side of humanity.

If you don't address the issues that Jester talks about then Eve will never have the massive player base that the underlying mechanics justify and I suspect at some point that you'll be faced with a murder or suicide as people continue to push things farther and farther.

The question ultimately comes down to whether CCP believes most people are inherently good or bad. You can't continue to try and cater to both kinds of people. You either continue to carry on as you are and create a recreational activity where people grief each other for fun (which appeals to those who wish they could do this kind of thing in the real world) or you appeal to those who want to spend their time relaxing rather than being griefed.

I understand this is a high-stakes kind of decision for CCP. Have you considered opening up a second instance of Eve (third after the Asian cluster)? Make this new instance have real, lasting consequences for actions that would be illegal/immoral in the real world and let people choose to be moved to the new servers once they understand what that means.

I think you would be astonished at the difference in retention rates in the new server. As it is now, new players are simply being used as food for individuals like Erotica1.--I won't be back to check out responses, but for those that say HTFU, I'm perfectly happy to live in a world where terrible things can happen. The difference is the level of consequence that I'm able to impose in the real world.

Here if you want to be a criminal that's fine, the police will gun you down permanently. Maybe the HTFU crowd needs to HTFU--if you really want to be a criminal then you should be willing to deal with substantial consequences. Anything else is the gankers, griefers and scammers' version of 'carebearing'.

You're making exactly the same mistake that I have been so passionate to prevent: confusing valid IN-GAME play with invalid OUT-OF-GAME activity.

Let's make this clear: CCP have absolutely no problem, not even a tiny bit with erotica1's actual scam, the ISK doubling thing. Or piracy. Or suicide ganking. Or spying, corp theft, awoxing and every other form of ordinary in-game villainy. Whatever else results from this affair, those who hope to curtail these normal, acceptable activities are not going to get their way.

CCP *do* have a very big problem with what happens *after* erotica1's victims have handed over all their ISK and assets.

So if you're going to quit because there's piracy and scamming in the game, well, you were going to quit even if erotica1 never existed. Goodbye, and I wish you success in your search for a game where people only play the way you want them and you never have to lose.

The fact that the incident was reported by the people involved to James315 and he then ridiculed the whole situation on minerbumping http://www.minerbumping.com/2014/03/jetliner-bumping-part-1.html (there are 4 parts) proves the people involved think it is a big joke to personally violate someone. These people need to be removed from Eve, all of them including James315 for openly vindicating their actions!!

Ripard,I've been reading your blog for years now... and this whole sequence of events really has caused me to lose a lot of respect for you. Essentially, in many ways, Erotica 1 didn't "publicly humiliate" Sohkar... YOU did. I watched the Erotica 1 / Sohkar livestream, in which Erotica 1 apologized, had the bulk of his skill points podded away, gave Sohkar some nice things, and the air was cleared. Sohkar, for his part, had been over the incident for some time, having freely admitted his fault for getting angry over things. He'd felt the whole thing was a non-issue at this point... but YOU manufactured a public opinion crisis, and YOU brought him back into the spotlight. Sohkar himself feels the whole matter has been blown far out of proportion, but he's been pretty mature about the whole thing (probably helps that he's gotten a huge pile of sympathy money from the community).Essentially, I feel that this whole sequence of posts has been based on false premises, hasn't really helped anyone, and has been damaging to the community. I feel that you owe an apology to Erotica 1, Sohkar, and the community at large. You messed up; time to take responsibility.

Thanks for providing an example, Anonymous! It's just that kind of "you're either with us or an evil sockpuppet of the one guy who stands to benefit from anything spoken against our just cause" mentality which I'm referring to when I say things like "damaging to the community".

Ripard,So yeah; suddenly, there's a whole ton of completely unreasonable people who completely believe the narrative you presented, even though it's false, because you didn't bother to check your facts. For politeness' sake, you might've at least contacted Sohkar before drawing everyone's attention to his indiscretions. You didn't, and you were wrong, a journalistic sin that you owe penance for.

Of course he feels better. He got stuff back and was grovelled over for the sake of clearing E1, all of which would have never happened if Jester hadn't brought it to the public's attention. How you defend that piece of shit is beyond me, it goes farther than Sokhar, the guy has problems.

AGAIN Endovior is an Erotica1 alt, every time someone REAL posts on here another alt or socket puppet New Order player rises up to make it look like Erotica1 is an innocent instead of seeing the reality. It is about time you opened your minds and actually looked at what happened instead of lying to yourselves. Erotica1 and his cohorts are sadist people and what they did was cold and calculating. And their continued actions are damaging to the Eve community. Ripard is an hero, he came out and spoke up and told it exactly how it was. When this is done and Erotica1 is booted then Eve will be a BETTER PLACE.

I have seen many people judge this situation without really understanding what the victim went through. I’m not here to convince anyone that they are wrong in their opinion, or offer suggestions on how CCP/the community should respond, but I want people to gain a glimmer of what the victim went through, so they can make a more informed opinion.

Abuse literally changes the way you think. I mean your brain, it actually alters your brain and how it works, and not for the short term. I’m still dealing with issues caused by my abuse and it’s been 25 years since it happened. So for those who are attempting to minimize the abuse (he could have just left, it’s no big deal, he was greedy/naïve/stupid, etc.), you don’t understand the depth and severity something like this causes.

This isn’t a humiliating episode, forgotten in hours/days/weeks, this is something that will alter their (he and his wife) lives forever.

Abuse traps you in a mental box that you feel you can’t escape from. Whether that’s actually true or not, the victim of abuse feels it, to the core of his being. You can’t fight, either because you feel like you can’t win, like me, or there’s nothing to fight against, like the victim of Erotica1’s abuse. You can’t flee, because there’s no where you can flee to, or the loss in fleeing is unacceptable.

The effects of abuse are further compounded by the fact that, rightly or wrongly, the victim feels that on some level he deserves it, so the only way to ‘redeem’ himself in his eyes is to try to ‘win’ against his abusers, further trapping him that mental box.

Believe me, as a fellow victim of abuse, there is no winning, there is only minimizing the damage, and most of the time, that only makes things worse too.

When I stopped playing EvE, I had 4 years of assets stored away. Imagine something that you had owned for 4 years. Maybe it’s a car you’ve owned and molded your life around. Maybe it’s a career you have and are trying to build a future around. *Snap-fingers* it’s gone, and the only way to get it back is to do whatever the person on the other end of the phone/VOIP/email/etc. 4 years of your life are history.

Has anyone here been fired from their job? Then you know how completely devastating that is. Now take something like EvE (which is real, remember) and add the huge amount of personal investment in time and energy. For every hour I played EvE, I spent an additional hour talking with my CEO about our corporation, the direction we wanted to take it, about our corpmates, the game itself, and any myriad number of details surrounding the game. While I only played EvE maybe 20-30 hours a week, my total energies devoted to the game probably amounted to 50+. And EvE was something that I wanted to do, unlike my job. I spent hours at work thinking about the things I had to do, planning and preparing. Hell, I haven’t played for over a year, and here I am still devoting a portion of each day reading blogs and making comments.

And now it’s all gone. Can you imagine the sense of loss, of desperation, even of shame and humiliation, having to start over from literally from scratch?

How would you feel?

My fellow EvE players (both past and present), it’s okay to have an opinion, but do try to see this from the victim’s point of view, and not on the outside looking in.

I totally agree, what E1 did was abuse and even though he got podded in return and what not that still doesn't make it right. He should be banned for a couple of months at the minimum and if he does something like this again banned for life.

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